Assassination mission problems?

[erik9631]

Hello.

Yesterday I finally managed to buy a fully A fited FDL and decided to try it out in combat.
So I got an assassination mission for 2 mil. Once I arrived to the spot I found out that my target was an annaconda (Elite) escorted by a vulture (Deadly)

I think I do not have to say how it ended. I got frustrated a lot since I invested a lot into this new ship and thought that there would be next to no enemy I could not face.

I read a lot about these missions and there were complaints in the past about the difficulty being unreal in some assassination missions and impossible to complete without a wing.

My question is how do you cope with this? You give up on the mission? Or are there any special tricks that I need to know/apply? Or is there something more to it?
Or is it really impossible to do alone and I need a wing?

 

[Prince Tharik Otoli]

Combat is hard

Yah, I had the same problems with my FDL, I ultimately sold it and got myself a fully kitted Clipper so I could do a variety of missions and not just combat.

Even still, I did recently manage to take down my first Anaconda 1.5mil (IIRC) mission recently.

Are you making full use of chaff? Shield banks? Heat sinks? Do you use lateral thrust? Do you wait for the police to show up and assist?

Try those things. Keep popping chaff, shield banks, and heat sinks. Boost away and corkscrew (horizontal lateral thrust while rolling) to wait for shields to charge and cops to show. Use lateral thrust upwards while climbing to being your guns on target.

You can’t just expect to show up with your FDL, line up on the targets and pop them off like they are Sidewinders. It takes much more.

Good luck!

 

[Hossi]

Strange, the only complaints over NPC difficulty that I'm aware of are that they are way to weak.(stuff like https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/394667-Bringing-back-the-danger-of-NPC-s)
But I think the obvious answer to you question is 'engineering'. Is your FDL engineered? An elite conda most likly is. I have a engineered FDL and when I meet a elite conda I think to myself 'great, at least a target that wont blow up during my FSD cooldown'.
Give it a try, its not that hard if you focus on a few core components at first.

 

[Dommarraa]

Shouldn't be very hard. The obvious issue is raised above, but I would have thought it doable without engineering as long as you splatted the vulture first

 

[erik9631]

No engineering.

I will buy Horizons soon tho and I will get into it. Does engineering really make such a huge difference?.

About the NPCs. I am a new player so I can not really judge the NPCs. But from the threads I read over the past 100 hours of my play time there used be a lot of complaints about NPCs being weak and worthless before a patch came that completely overhauled the way they behave. From that point on I have only found complaints about the NPC difficulty (CZ not being viable and so on).

 

[Urbanski101]

A few things.

Maybe try combat flying the FDL in a Hi Res site and get used to the way she handles. It's quite fast and agile but can drift and stall if you don't know how to counter that. That means you are a sitting duck for a few seconds. Always worth testing out on lesser targets before you engage the more advanced and dangerous ships

Second, assassinations vary greatly from a FAS which is not much problem to a wing of elite ships which is possible but only if you are an extremely good pilot that has the right set up and knows the ships capabilities inside out.

Thirdly, might be worth posting your ship set up, i'm sure others will help with some advice.

I also fly an FDL and nearly came a cropper last night taking on a pirate lord in a corvette, it all started well until the pirate landed a plasma round on me and switched to uber mode, FA off flying, plasma spam, all weapons firing at once, SCBs and chaff spam.

I've noticed that the pirate vette doesn't fire anything but plasma rounds at first and they are fairly easy pickings. When they eventually land a plasma round on you they seem to wake up and use the rest of their arsenal and defenses.

I prevailed but ended up having to reboot my ship to repair the FSD which was taken out in the exchange. Very hairy but fun.

In short, learn how to fly the FDL and practice with her until it's second nature (res sites or CZs). Alter your setup to suit your style. Don't take on the big assassination missions just yet, there are others for less money that will make for a good fight and learning experience.

 

[Greybeard_LXI]

When I have that type of problem it is often because I picked a mission that was higher than my skill level. Did you pick an elite mission?

 

[IndigoWyrd]

My last couple assassinations have been Pirate Lords in Federal Corvettes.

It so happens I love blowing these things apart, and have discovered a new technique that seems to work quite well. So far, the only time I've not been able to take one of these out was in my highly specialized AspX, sporting 4 small rails and 2 medium burst lasers.

I didn't have many issues taking hits, but more a problem of keeping his shields down long enough to do any meaningful damage. I'm getting better with rails though. I wound up going back for a different ship, returning and slagging the pirate anyways.

 

[GG7]

My last couple assassinations have been Pirate Lords in Federal Corvettes.

I've been doing a ton of these lately because they are one of the few mission types that isn't currently bugged! (For example... Planetary Scan Missions are totally at the moment and 9 times out of 10, fail to complete after scanning the surface beacon, despite the game proclaiming otherwise!)

But as far as the Pirate Lord missions go... It appears that any mission in this category that pays in the area of 2 Million CR will be a "Threat 4" and the target will be flying a Federal Corvette with dual 4A Plasma Accelerators. (Threat 3 is almost always a Python or FDL with varying weapon load outs)

If the mission also gets tagged with the additional (3-4) enemy ships that will try to take you out before you actually face the target in the USS, those will almost always be Anacondas with a Deadly or higher pilot. These will often be tougher fights than the mission target because most of these Condas are using a Class 6 Shield Cell Bank and can regenerate their shields back to FULL strength if you fail to take them down quick enough. They also tend to run multiple PAs as their main weapons system.

My preferred approach to these missions is to use my own "A" rated and engineered Corvette with a Fighter Bay installed. The Taipan with fixed Beam Lasers seems to be the best overall fighter version for these due to the chaff spamming these Condas always do, and I prefer to use an "Expert" rated NPC to fly the fighter while I fly the Vette.

These are a great mission type for the Corvette since the systems involved are usually well under 20Ly from the mission giver location, so jump range is never a problem and you rarely are more than (1) jump away from the target system. FDEV has also added an extra hour to the ETA on these so you can stack a half dozen or so and not have to scramble to get them all done before the time runs out.

The most challenging part of the whole process isn't actually the combat, but getting your station of choice to cough up more than 1 or 2 of these every board refresh.

 

[Zerocz]

Yeah engineering would help, but let's consider it as tactical problem:

A Vulture and an Anaconda, eh?

Tough situation. Either one can last long enough under your guns for his buddy to tear you up.
The answer, as with anything, is to use your head.

If you have double-chaff fitted, you could use that to reduce the effective dps of the Anaconda while you dispose of the Vulture. Otherwise I think I'd try to separate them. Attack, then fly away. The slower Anaconda should trail out further and further behind, allowing you to engage the Vulture alone.

 

[GG7]

My advice to commanders running an FDL or Python would be to stick to the Threat 3 versions (Payouts of 1.2 to 1.6 mil) and save the Threat 4 versions for when they can run a larger ship with a fighter bay.

 

[IndigoWyrd]

If the mission also gets tagged with the additional (3-4) enemy ships that will try to take you out before you actually face the target in the USS, those will almost always be Anacondas with a Deadly or higher pilot. These will often be tougher fights than the mission target because most of these Condas are using a Class 6 Shield Cell Bank and can regenerate their shields back to FULL strength if you fail to take them down quick enough. They also tend to run multiple PAs as their main weapons system.

That probably explains why they get so bent out of shape when tagged with my dual Feedback Cascade railguns...

Though I've only run into one of these kinds of battles so far, but I find them fun. I also have a pretty decent setup for dealing with things like this, at least for me.

 

[GG7]

That probably explains why they get so bent out of shape when tagged with my dual Feedback Cascade railguns...

Though I've only run into one of these kinds of battles so far, but I find them fun. I also have a pretty decent setup for dealing with things like this, at least for me.

These never start out with those additional enemies involved. The mission (s) gets updated later and you are alerted via a mission update message that additional enemies will now be involved.

You know... You might be seeing less of them because you are completing the original mission before the game has a chance to add the extra layers? (The update seems to happen around 10-15 minutes or more "after" you accept the mission from the board. Not sure if travel distance, parked vs in space has any impact or not either?)

From personal experience with these since the changes in 2.4, I'd say at least half of the Pirate Lord missions I take on that are a Threat Level 4 end up with the Anacondas added to them. I tend to stack a half dozen or so before heading out, so the last few I complete have been on my transaction page for well over 30-45 minutes before I get to them.

I really enjoy them too! But I don't imagine that someone with a less capable ship/load out and/or combat experience would share our opinion on these! (At least the Threat Level 4 variants!)

 

[Underhook]

The lone anaconda is very easy to kil with the FDL. Get in close behind even put your nose up against it. You are much more manuverable.
However, the 2nd ship changes things a lot and it would be very difficult in an unengineered ship.
Once engineered your FDL will pretty much double in shield strength and fire power.
I rarely do any mission like these as they almost always have something wrong with them. Mission design is better than it was at launch bit not much better. Mission design is not FD's strong point.

 

[RENFI3LD]

I do these missions alot mainly b/c they are easy to stack all in the same system, so really good pay out and i really have fun doing them (never had any bugs or problems w/ them, the politician assassination missions are my favorite). I use a vulture b/c the two size 3 pulse lasers can eat the shields on large ships fast. W/o engineers i bet this was a pretty tough fight, but if you can manage to knock the shields off a anaconda you can take it down quickly by targeting its power plant (id try to kill the mission target first). Maybe thats some info that might help, but good luck.

 

[A D]

Hello.

Yesterday I finally managed to buy a fully A fited FDL and decided to try it out in combat.
So I got an assassination mission for 2 mil. Once I arrived to the spot I found out that my target was an annaconda (Elite) escorted by a vulture (Deadly)

I think I do not have to say how it ended. I got frustrated a lot since I invested a lot into this new ship and thought that there would be next to no enemy I could not face.

I read a lot about these missions and there were complaints in the past about the difficulty being unreal in some assassination missions and impossible to complete without a wing.

My question is how do you cope with this? You give up on the mission? Or are there any special tricks that I need to know/apply? Or is there something more to it?
Or is it really impossible to do alone and I need a wing?

I have only done a couple of these missions. Used an un-engineered FAA which is similar to the FDL in many ways. Found the following useful:

- Target the 'Conda power sub-system before the shooting starts.
- Assuming your ship is clean the system authorities will give you a hand after a little while.

Good luck

 

[Rabzee1980]

Use a smaller ship and use laterial thrusters at every opportunity

 

[Morbad]

An engineered FDL can should still be sufficent for these encounters, once you've familiarized yourself with the ship.

There are two basic strategies I use if I'm going after targets like this in my weaker vessels:

1. Destroy the target as fast as possible upon encountering it, and leave before it's wing/SLF tear apart my ship.

2. Divide and conquer by pulling away the faster escorts and destroying them first.

As far as tactics, a lot of burst damage to knockout the shields early, then targeting the powerplant usually works.

FDL is a pretty solid assassin, with a lot of utility hardpoints and potential for very solid damage against all targets. Dual chaff can give you substantial protection from enemy turrets as you position yourself and deliver damage with 4 pips to WEP. Heatisnks can be used to restore some WEP, further increasing offensive capabilities. Against NPCs, something like medium burst lasers and a huge cannon, for example, will tear apart most ships in short order.

 

[Urbanski101]

I had a vette pirate lord last night actually high wake out of the fight!?

Never seen that before....without a wake scanner I had no chance to track him so I docked, restocked and came back to the target planet, the mission USS spawned a couple of minutes later, pirate was back to full strength....he died in short order.

Anyone else had the target High wake out?

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

I had a vette pirate lord last night actually high wake out of the fight!?

Never seen that before....without a wake scanner I had no chance to track him so I docked, restocked and came back to the target planet, the mission USS spawned a couple of minutes later, pirate was back to full strength....he died in short order.

Anyone else had the target High wake out?

It's not worth chasing them, as that's bugged. If you do track them to another system, the pirate will still be damaged so is easy enough to kill, but won't count as the mission target. Also there's a good chance that you'll get a bounty for killing a clean target as the pirate probably won't be wanted in that other system.